When combatting wildfire from the air, various tools can be utilized. One common tool is to load an appropriately configured aircraft with wildland fire chemicals, fly the aircraft over the fire or an area adjacent the fire to be protected, and discharge the fire chemical from the aircraft. While such fire chemicals are quite effective in suppressing wildfire, the aircraft must travel to a reloading base and return to the location of the wildfire before additional loads can be dropped, decreasing the effectiveness of such aircraft proportional to the distance the reloading base is from the fire and the time such reloading takes.
In many instances bodies of water are available in the area where the wildfire is occurring. Helicopters can be utilized with buckets suspended therefrom which can be loaded with water and then flown to the site of the wildfire and released. Water is not as effective as fire retardants or suppressants in combatting wildfire. Also, helicopters have a lesser payload capacity than airplanes.
It is also known to utilize airplanes for dropping water onto wildfires. Such airplanes are configured to skim over a body of water to load tanks therein with water. Such airplanes then fly to the site of the fire where the water can be released.
Water's effectiveness as a fire suppressant can be significantly enhanced by adding a suppressant polymer to the water. One such polymer material is provided under the trademarks FIREWALL ULTRA, provided by BroadRange Wildland Fire Chemicals of Cold Springs, Calif. and FIREWALL II, provided by Eco FireSolutions of Carmichael, Calif. One known system for activating the polymer gel emulsion with water uses the hydrodynamic forces of the water scooped into the aircraft to achieve polymer gel emulsion activation and mixing with water. Such a system is described in Published Patent Application No. 2013/0112907 incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
A pump is typically used to provide the required “dose” of polymer to a tank load of water in various polymer gel emulsion activation and mixing systems on aircraft. This pump must be powered, typically form an electrical system of the aircraft that is already heavily taxed. Thus, a need exists to power the polymer dosing procedure in a manner that minimizes the burden on the aircraft.
Such dosing systems are known in the prior art to have a dosing pump to supply pressure for injection of the polymer gel emulsion into the water. This pump would typically be a particularly high energy pump, especially when water collection and water with polymer gel emulsion occurs when the water is being collected in a scooping intake of an aircraft. In particular, the water is particularly high energy due to the velocity of the aircraft line over the water. The polymer gel emulsion dosing pump must generate sufficient pressure so that the polymer gel emulsion will be provided into the water, and with an appropriate amount, rather than high energy water flowing back into the dosing system. Even if a check valve is provided, the pump must have sufficient power to open the check valve and introduce the polymer gel emulsion into the high energy water stream.
Furthermore, a relatively short time period is provided for a relatively large dose of polymer gel emulsion to be introduced into the water when the water is brought into the system through a scooping intake. With only a short amount of time available, the pump must advance a relatively large amount of polymer gel emulsion in a relatively short amount of time, tending to increase the power requirements for the pump during this surge of required activity.
These performance demands on the pump tend to increase an amount of power required to operate the pump, and also tends to increase the size (and hence also weight) of the pump itself and/or the complexity of the pump. In an aircraft environment available power to operate the pump is limited because substantially all available power is being supplied to the vehicle to provide motive power for the vehicle and to power other various onboard systems. Furthermore, on an aircraft weight and available space are exceptionally limited so that the aircraft can maintain its performance specifications and maximize payload delivery and associated fire fighting capabilities. Accordingly, a need exists for an alternative to a dosing pump, or at a minimum systems which minimize the size, complexity and energy requirements of any such dosing pump.